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Tag: tony abbott
Turnbull Topples Abbott, To Become Australia’s Fifth PM In Eight Years

Turnbull Topples Abbott, To Become Australia’s Fifth PM In Eight Years

By Matt Siegel

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia will have its fifth prime minister in eight years after the ruling Liberal Party on Monday voted out Tony Abbott in favor of longtime rival Malcolm Turnbull, following months of infighting and crumbling voter support.

Turnbull, a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur, won a secret party vote by 54 to 44, Liberal Party chief whip Scott Buchholz told reporters after the meeting in Canberra.

Australia is set to hold elections before the end of next year, and Turnbull, expected to be sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday, told reporters he had no intention of calling an early poll to cement his legitimacy.

“I’m very humbled by the great honor and responsibility that has been given to me today,” an ebullient Turnbull told reporters during a late-night press conference.

“This will be a thoroughly liberal government. It will be a thoroughly liberal government committed to freedom, the individual and the market.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was re-elected deputy leader of the party which, with junior coalition partner the National Party, won a landslide election in 2013.

Abbott had earlier pledged to fight the challenge from Turnbull, but was ultimately unsuccessful in overcoming the “destabilization” that he said had been taking place within the party for months.

He walked stony faced out of the party room following the vote and did not speak to reporters.

Abbott ousted Turnbull as leader of the Liberal Party in 2009, though Turnbull has consistently been seen as a preferred prime minister. However, Turnbull’s support for a carbon trading scheme, gay marriage and an Australian republic have made him unpopular with his party’s right wing.

The challenge came as Australia’s $1.5 trillion economy struggles to cope with the end of a once-in-a-century mining boom and just days before a by-election in Western Australia state widely seen as a test of Abbott’s leadership.

Abbott emerged badly weakened from a leadership challenge in February, which came about after weeks of infighting, and pledged a new spirit of conciliation.

But he and his government have since consistently lagged the centre-left opposition Labor Party in opinion polls, helping fuel speculation over how long his party would give him to turn things around.

“GOSSIP, GAMES”

Abbott earlier dismissed reports about a challenge as “gossip”, saying he refused to play “Canberra games”.

Abbott has continued to defy popular opinion inside and outside his party, despite pledging to be more consultative, blocking his MPs from supporting same-sex marriage and announcing an emissions reduction target criticized as inadequate by environmental groups.

Turnbull declined to say whether he would honor Abbott’s pledge to hold a public referendum on gay marriage. On climate change, a prickly issue within the Liberal Party, he told reporters he supported the emissions target set by Abbott.

Abbott agreed last week to take in 12,000 Syrian refugees, but that news was overshadowed by rumors of a cabinet reshuffle and an insensitive gaffe about climate change, caught by a microphone at a meeting, by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Monday showed that voters in the seat of Canning in Western Australia could deliver a swing of up to 10 percent against the government in Saturday’s by-election.

The outcome of that vote, which had been expected to be a referendum on Abbott’s leadership, will now be closely watched as a sign of Turnbull’s chances of reversing the government’s fortunes.

AUSTRALIA NEEDS A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT

The change of leaders is the latest sign of political instability in Australia, which has in recent years been convulsed by backroom machinations and party coups that have shaken public and business confidence in government.

Labor’s Kevin Rudd, elected with a strong mandate in 2007, was deposed by his deputy, Julia Gillard, in 2010 amid the same sort of poll numbers that Abbott is now facing. Gillard was in turn deposed by Rudd ahead of elections won by Abbott in 2013.

Abbott has now become the shortest reigning first-term prime minister to be overthrown, Rod Tiffen, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Sydney, told Reuters.

“It’s pretty amazing to think that we will have had two prime ministers overthrown in their first terms, which hasn’t happened since World War Two. This shows the degree of instability within parties that we now have,” he said.

Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, in a scathing press statement following Turnbull’s announcement, dismissed the idea that Turnbull was capable of changing the government’s trajectory.

“Australia does not need another out of touch, arrogant, Liberal leader. Australia needs a change of government,” Shorten told reporters in Canberra.

(Reporting by Matt Siegel, with additional reporting by Lincoln Feast and Melissa Redman in SYDNEY; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel and Ian Geoghegan)

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott delivers a lecture on “Our Common Challenges: Strengthening Security in the Region” in Singapore June 29, 2015. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Photo: Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott delivers a lecture on “Our Common Challenges: Strengthening Security in the Region” in Singapore June 29, 2015. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Endorse This: Conservative Leader Offends His Entire Country With ‘A Holocaust Of Jobs’

Endorse This: Conservative Leader Offends His Entire Country With ‘A Holocaust Of Jobs’

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Australia’s right-wing Prime Minister Tony Abbott just narrowly survived an effort by his own party to bounce him out of office. So obviously, his next move should be to respond to the latest rising unemployment numbers — by saying on the floor of Parliament late last week that his Labor Party opponents had been responsible for “a holocaust of jobs” in the defense industry.

Click above to watch Abbott’s latest effort to further mangle his already staggering unpopularity — then share this video!

Video via 7 News.

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Australia, United States Appalled At Decapitated Head Photo

Australia, United States Appalled At Decapitated Head Photo

By Martin Parry

Sydney (AFP) — A shocking image of what is believed to be the young son of an Australian man holding a decapitated head in Syria shows how barbaric the Islamic State “terrorist army” is, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday.

He made the comment while announcing Australia will likely join airdrops of supplies to Iraqi civilians besieged by jihadist IS militants on a barren mountain.

The picture, taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqa, was posted on the Twitter account of Khaled Sharrouf, an Australian who fled to Syria last year and is now an IS fighter, The Australian newspaper said.

It reportedly shows Sharrouf’s seven-year-old, Sydney-raised son dressed like any other young boy in blue checked trousers, a blue shirt, and baseball cap, struggling to hold up the severed head of a slain Syrian soldier by his hair.

It was captioned with the words “That’s my boy”.

Another photo published by the newspaper shows Sharrouf dressed in camouflage fatigues posing with three young boys whom it said are believed by security agencies to be his sons.

All are holding guns in front of the flag of the Islamic State militants who have swept across Iraq and Syria, seizing swathes of territory.

– ‘Act of a lunatic’ –

Abbott, speaking to ABC radio from the Netherlands, said the pictures showed the barbaric nature of the Sunni extremists formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

“What we’ve got to appreciate is that Islamic State — as they’re now calling themselves — is not just a terrorist group, it’s a terrorist army and they’re seeking not just a terrorist enclave but effectively a terrorist state, a terrorist nation,” he said.

“And this does pose extraordinary problems… not just for the people of the Middle East but for the wider world.

“And we see more and more evidence of just how barbaric this particular entity is.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was equally outraged, saying the militants were “a threat to the civilized world”.

“I think this was reflected in a local newspaper I saw this morning and the picture on the front page. It was pretty graphic evidence of the real threat that IS represents,” he said in Sydney.

Australia has an arrest warrant out for Sharrouf, who has also been pictured posing with severed heads. Officials have said up to 150 Australians are fighting alongside militants overseas, mostly in Iraq and Syria.

Sharrouf, who served almost four years in prison after pleading guilty over a 2005 conspiracy to attack Sydney, fled the country using his brother’s passport.

Australian Defense Minister David Johnston said he was “revolted” by the image, which he called “a shocking misrepresentation of Islam”.

“I’m very upset about this sort of thing completely colouring our view of Muslims,” he said, while Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan distanced the Australian Muslim community from it.

“I stand very far from that concept — this is an act of a lunatic,” he told the ABC.

Abbott, meanwhile, said Australia was ready to take part in American airdrops to civilians threatened in Iraq, and could also deploy two aircraft for any airlift mission.

“Australia will gladly join the humanitarian airlift to the people stranded on Mount Sinjar. This is a potential humanitarian catastrophe — President Obama has said it’s a potential genocide,” he said.

“So we do have some Hercules C1-30 aircraft in the Middle East and we have a C-17 that’s bringing humanitarian supplies from Australia in the next day or so, and we’d expect to join that humanitarian airlift should it be needed sometime later in the week.”

As well as dropping supplies, American jets and drones have been carrying out attacks on IS militants in northern Iraq as Washington tries to turn the tide on two months of jihadist expansion in the region.

AFP Photo

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